– She likes to sit up (still assisted) and watch Cameron and the dogs play.

– Can stand while holding hands.

-Easily distracted

Eating. We’re still breastfeeding. My goal was originally 6 months. She doesn’t show any signs of wanting to wean anytime soon like Cameron did at this age so we’ll see.

We restarted solids! She’s been watching us eat very closely lately. Following our hands from the plate to the mouth and back. And if I’m holding her while eating she tries to grab my food. I took these as signs that she might be ready for solids. On her 5 month birthday we re-tried rice cereal. And then again the next 2 days. All three times she hated it. So the next day I tried real baby food. Apples and bananas. And she ate and ate and ate. She gets so excited and tries to help it into her mouth with her hands and gets it all over the place. It’s absolutely adorable. I LOVE feeding her.

Sleep. Still a sore subject around here. This is where I’ve had to just accept that my children are different and make adjustments to make sure their needs are met. I’m hardly an experienced parent. With only 2 years down, I’m still clueless. But I have done this baby thing before. And I made some choices with Cameron, based on advice from friends, that were really hard on us. Did it hurt her in the long run? Probably not. But looking back on it, it caused me to completely change my philosophy on parenting Charlotte and now Cameron as a toddler. With that said, Charlotte is still co-sleeping and waking up to nurse several times a night. I can’t and wont let her cry it out by herself in her crib. It’s just not the right thing to do for her. Parents all over the world sleep train their children successfully this way. I can’t justify doing it for Charlotte. With age and sleep maturity, my hope is that she will soon be able to get herself to sleep without having to constantly nurse. She doesn’t wake up because she’s hungry. She wakes up as a normal part of her nighttime sleep cycle, realizes she’s awake, panics because she doesn’t know what to do and cries for me unless she’s right next to me, in which case she nurses herself back to sleep in a matter of seconds. I don’t mind her next to me at night. She’s quite the cuddly little bug. But I don’t sleep well because I’m constantly waking up to check on her and make sure Cameron isn’t kicking her because yep she’s still in our bed too. We’re sleep deprived and my bones ache from sleeping in one position all night every night, but our children are happy, healthy, and know that their parents are present and keeping them safe. (Not to say that other parenting styles don’t also do this for children) We’re in the process of getting Charlotte to bed earlier and in more of a nighttime routine to help facilitate longer periods of sleep.

Oh and here’s the kicker. She’s a smart little one. You might be wondering what in the world she does on nights I’m at work. She sleeps! Brian has no problems at all. She will sleep from 8pm – 5 am. He still puts her in her swing which will soon have to change as she’s starting the process of sitting up by herself and that makes the swing dangerous. We’ve been incorporating a lot of white noise into her sleep too which does seem to help a little. Isn’t it crazy that she knows I’m not there so doesn’t even bother crying for me and waits until she’s hungry to wake Brian?

Reading over what I just wrote makes me think that it sounds like she has me wrapped around her little finger. And she, well … THEY probably do to some extent. But I interpret what we have as the foundation of what I hope is a great mother/daughter relationship. I want them to know they can trust me and that I am always here for them. I will respond to and meet their needs. They don’t have to go through anything alone. And doing what we’re doing is what we think will best work for our kids.

Her eyes are still hazel, turning more of a green brown color than bluish. They’re still pretty light. And so expressive.

Her hair is turning blonde! She still has the brown hair from birth and it’s still long in the front and a little patch in the back, but the new hair is blonde. It looks especially light in the sun or light. Here eyelashes are blonde too.

She’s made so many changes in the last 2 weeks. It seems like it all started happening as soon as she started taking the antibiotic. I’m not sure if it’s related or just a coincidence, but I’m just happy to see my sweet girl enjoying life again.

This was one of Cameron’s old Valentine’s dresses. I love having two girls born in the same season.

Still working hard at that tummy time. She’s getting better at supporting herself with her arms every day.

She’s never been a fan of the bumbo. I didn’t think I’d ever see a baby wriggle out of one of these but Charlotte can do it. She doesn’t like it (except to chew on) and squirms until she’s practically falling out.

She looks so tired and sick here. 🙁

This is one of those pictures you can’t not smile back at.

She was watching me closely one day as I was giving Cameron a bath. I know she can’t wait till she’s big enough to take a bath in the big tub. It wont be long!

We have a lot of those moments that I’m sure every parent has where your kid does something super cute or special and you want it on video to remember forever. I never want to forget the precious sound of Cameron’s singing voice, or the way she skips the number 4 when she counts, or how absolutely adorable she is when she gets distracted by things. And Charlotte’s coos, gurgles and laughs… how quickly children grow and change.

This first video I meant to post months ago. It’s a short clip from Kelly & Jenna’s wedding around Thanksgiving. Cameron was all over the dance floor and her favorite dance partner was definitely Grandpa. This sight is something I never EVER want to forget.

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The next video is a “Thank You” video we made for my friend Kelly. She got Cameron an Elephant game for Christmas. I was trying to get her to say thank you for it and talk about it but she got distracted by Charlotte (who was sitting in my lap while I was filming) when she let out a wet burp with lots of spit up. She might be hard to understand for many but she’s saying, “Char Char spit up!” and then “Char Char eat it!!” I tried to keep Cameron on track but it was hopeless. The kid is funny about spit-up.

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The next video is another one I never want to forget. My grandpa, Pappy, tickling my sweet baby. He’s done this same tickling for as long as I can remember. It was priceless to see Charlotte respond to it like she did.

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This next video is kinda boring to watch but makes me laugh. Believe it or not, this was Cameron’s first carwash. I wanted to record it to see her expressions. We had watched an episode of Caillou earlier that day where Caillou and his baby sister went through the carwash with their daddy. She was curious about it so I figured we’d make an outing out of it. I love how big her eyes get when she tries to process what the heck is going on.

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One of the new things Cameron has been doing is tending to her baby sister when she cries. She tries to occupy her, sing to her, reassure her and even kisses her. Last week we heard her say again, “It’s okay Char Char, I’m right here.” It was SO stinking cute and I wish I would have had my phone recording at that moment. But I didn’t, so this was my attempt to get her to do it again…

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And here’s a recent video of Cameron counting and singing… and getting distracted by cheering for herself! I love it! And yes, those are tears in her eyes. Moments earlier she had jumped off her chair and landed on her bottom. Poor baby. She got over it quickly. 🙂

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This one is of Cameron playing with her puzzles and naming all the animals. This is easily one of my favorite videos of her ever. She’s very much in an animal phase right now. She wants to know the names of them all! Puzzles are so fun!

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And here’s one of Charlotte now that she’s feeling better. Kicking and playing under her little play gym thingy. 🙂

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And about Charlotte.. she’s feeling so much better. Her urine culture didn’t grow any bacteria but her doctor still thinks she had a UTI because of how many white and red blood cells were in her urine and her corresponding blood work and fever. Apparently not all bacteria from urine will grow out in a culture dish and we could have caught it in the early stages. His thoughts are it started with a virus 3 weeks ago that ended up with a secondary UTI by the time her fevers started getting high this time last week. He wants us to continue the antibiotic and then have her back to the office so they can recheck her urine in 2 weeks. I hate that we will have to do that again!!! I guess at that time we’ll discuss whether or not she needs to be seen by a urologist for further testing. Thank you for the kind thoughts and prayers for my sweet baby. We really appreciate it. 🙂

We had the girls pictures taken in a Valentine’s Mini Session with a friend of mine who is also a professional photographer. She had a cute little set up and it could have been a lot of fun if I would have thought about what I was doing before I scheduled us late afternoon. My reasoning was that the later we scheduled the greater the chance of us actually arriving on time. I completely forgot to take into account their usual meltdown time. They were tired, hungry and just not in the mood to show off exactly how cute they are. It was my fault.

But we did get a couple that I really like.

As usual, the girl who is full of smiles off camera strikes her serious on-camera pose.

I like this one. 🙂

I realized once we got there that I forgot Charlotte’s diaper cover! *sigh* I was so tired. I was running on just a few hours sleep after a weekend of work.

And one more thing..

I was so excited to get my very first picture of both of my children with at least one of them smiling yesterday. It’s not an easy task as many parents know. Especially for parents of headstrong camera shy toddlers. Charlotte was sick and fussy for the process but it turned out decent and I was pleased. But.. I can’t help but laugh and feel the need to post some of the pictures that didn’t make the cut.

The first is my favorite. It describes our Valentine’s day perfectly.

The rest are cute. It’s nice to see my goofy girl Cam hamming it up on camera for a change.

And in case anyone is wondering, Charlotte is feeling MUCH better today. Thank you, God! She started out the day with just a low grade fever that broke before noon. I swear she grew over night. For the first time ever, she’s been laughing to herself! She’s been cooing and talking a lot more too. I think she’s starting to feel like herself again. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll know whether or not her cultures came back positive to see if it was truly a UTI or just another virus. Thanks to those of you who have been thinking and praying for her.

We had an extra special day this year loving on our two precious valentines.

(amazing what you can get Cameron to do with a little Lucky Charms bribery)

And an update on my Char Char: We went back to the pediatrician today since she was still running a fever this morning. I called him with the updates of last night and this morning and he decided he wanted us to come back in. He had said yesterday he wanted to check her for a UTI but didn’t want to put her through the trauma of collecting the specimen until he thought it was absolutely necessary. They have to use a catheter to collect a specimen on babies and that was very traumatic for her but thankfully she will not remember it. Her urine was cloudy and had white and red blood cells in it so he’s suspecting UTI but we will not know for sure until the culture comes back in a day or two. Until then, we’re treating her with antibiotics. He said it could be a virus that’s going around where the child has 3 days of fever and then a rash on the whole body. He hopes that’s the case because protocol for a baby Charlotte’s age with a UTI is a renal ultrasound and other testing to rule out reflux. So we hope we don’t have to go through all that but we want her well so whatever is necessary we’ll do.

I spoke too soon when I said we were all better over here. Charlotte can’t seem to get rid of whatever she’s caught. She’s had recurrent fever with no other symptoms over the last 2 weeks, reaching the highest yesterday at nearly 103. It lasts a few days then she’s fine for a few days then it come back and so on. We went to the doctor today and had blood work done, got a few puzzling (but not ominous) results and no real answers. He kept commenting on how good she looks and acts despite being sick. Today her highest was 101. The doctor said he wanted us to come back for more testing if it persisted and it looks like we may be headed that way. I absolutely hate not knowing what’s wrong with my baby. She’s still in good spirits, though, and only has difficulties sleeping when her fever is high.

Cameron remains well, thankfully, and is being a good big sister for her sick Char Char. She had her Valentine’s day party at school today. When she got home, Brian & I gave the girls their Valentine’s Day gifts. A princess doll for Cameron and a red ball for Charlotte. Both loved their gifts.

Charlotte’s new ball!

(It was a monkey hat mood kind of day)

Princess Rapunzel

My sweet girls. The lights of my life.

Please say a little prayer for my baby if you have a moment. It’s probably just a minor illness but I can’t help but worry about her. We are so in love with her. Cameron was never sick as an infant so this is all new to us. We have faith that God will protect our girls and keep them safe. It’s just so hard to not know what’s going on and wonder if it’s something serious.